Heroes of Camp Half-Blood: Dark Rising
by SuperAwesomeSpecialWriterDude
Summary: 30 years after The Last Olympian: Chaos is stirring in The Void and a new type of foe emerges. Contains AU (disregards events in HoO), OC. Warning: Much development, slow plot; if your mind can't take a normal-length book, don't read it; characters don't get involved in romance/have tragic backgrounds/have teen angst/have crazy superpowers. NO SHIPPING! PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS!
1. Chapter I

**Chapter I**

Clemont's eyes flew open at the sound of the conch shell. He grabbed his spear and started to run towards where the commotion was but then realizing this was pointless, slowed to a mere gait. "Yes rush to the frontlines! You're indispensable to the victory after all"

He laughed bitterly at this and continued to walk towards the action. It appeared that a satyr had just guided two demigods, a male and a female, across the border with a hydra in hot pursuit and just as Clemont had predicted, several of his half siblings were already on it. Watching them take command of the situation while the new demigods stumbled across the border reminded him of when he first arrived at camp…

At just over 1.6 meters tall and just 50 kilograms, Clemont Luminose was the smallest son of Zeus to had ever walk the face of the earth. He had inherited all aspects of his appearance from his mother, the famous Canadian supermodel Elesa Luminose. His blonde hair and the slim figure that, while being great for his mother's career, had certainly not won him any respect. About five years ago, he had been excited to learn that he was a son of Zeus, having wanted his whole life to be as masculine as the Greek demigods in mythology. He was sorely disappointed however when after five years of camp, he was barely able to use the heavy spear he now toted around. He also severely fell short of expectations in other ways too. When he first moved into Zeus House, he found his house leader Jay, who was charismatic to his followers but could also be intimidating when he wanted to, an excellent leader. In the past three years, Clemont hoped he could absorb leaderly qualities by osmosis through living with his housemates but no such luck, Clemont hadn't so much as qualified for any quest, much less be its leader. After finding out he couldn't be the strong leader expected of him, he hoped that he could at least have a social life. Being of French descent and a son of Zeus, he, after much pressure from his male housemates, decided to ask out a daughter of Aphrodite. The entire thing was a fiasco. His date had asked him details on many adventures, of which Clemont had none to divulge and they never went out again and in Clemont's case, or with anyone else ever again.

And so, having neither strength nor leadership (nor a love life), Clemont found himself not joining the battle with the hydra but rather, guiding the two demigods to the Big Manor. On his way down the hill passed several children of Poseidon, among them was his friend Marlon. As Clemont ran down the hill, he gave Marlon an acknowledging nod…

As Marlon ran up the hill to the hydra, he noticed Clemont leading the new campers to the Big Manor and gave him an acknowledging nod. As reached the top of the hill, he slowed and his half-siblings rushed past him, pulling out their weapons. "Imbeciles!" thought Marlon. Even those with even the meanest knowledge of monsters knew that where a hydra's head was severed, two heads replaced it. Of course, thought Marlon dryly, his housemates were not known for having the meanest of intelligence…

Marlon Siebold had been born to an affluent marine biologist living in San Francisco who was the Dean of Life Sciences at a nearby eminent university. As a child, he enjoyed living in the city due to its close proximity to the beach, which he would visit as often as he could, and the famous San Francisco fog which carried traces of the sea with it. He also had a love for and interest in marine life, possibly a result of influence from his mother. Being the son of one of the most powerful Olympians and living so far to the west, he had been brought to camp at an especially early, at the age of seven. Upon being inducted into Poseidon House, he felt strangely left out. It wasn't that all the other children were older than him, for Marlon was mature for his age, nor was it that they were unfriendly, for they all treated him as though he were their brother...which he technically was. It was that Marlon didn't feel that other than the fact that they all had the same father, they had nothing in common with him. Aside from the fact that they shared the same house and had various water-related abilities that came with being children of Poseidon, they were completely different from him. He found the others to be rowdy and dim-witted at times, the best example of being his House Leader Perry, who, upon being asked what he would major in college, replies "Surfing" and laughed. Marlon, on the other hand, having been brought up by the dean of a university, was sophisticated and intelligent. With no school grades to hold him back at camp, Marlon eagerly the camp's academic classes and Chiron, who taught all of them, commended him, saying he was the most well-learned demigod that wasn't a child of Athena that he knew. Despite this great praise, Marlon quietly continued his studies, never once boasting about this, unlike his siblings, who would brag about everything their instructors said about their skill in battle. He had been surprised to learn that Percy Jackson, the most famous modern son of Poseidon who had defeated the titan Kronos (and now lived happily somewhere in New York with his wife Annabeth) was much like his siblings. It was because of this, and also the fact that he'd already taken every other class the camp had to offer and had nothing better to do, he decided to learn how to fight and use his powers. He became quite strong, never becoming physically the strongest or even the one with the greatest magical powers but he had the best technique and used his demigods powers creatively and devised strategies with which to beat his opponents. And he never did become the strongest. While he grew taller quite rapidly, he remained very thin and gaunt, at 1.8 meters, he weighed in at about 55 kilograms. The only friends he had here were Clemont and Grimsley, the child of Zeus and Hades respectively. He was literally closer to his parent's rival's children than he was to his own siblings. But to be fair they were a bunch of idiots. Which is why he had to wait for the struggle to become real because he knew only then would the others take his advice.

Marlon snapped back to reality. The hydra now had over thirty heads and the children of Poseidon, having caught on with the hydra's powers, now hid amongst the trees or behind their shields, jabbing at it from different sides every now and then. Marlon cursed himself for his lapse in attention. His thoughts turned to the encyclopedic knowledge inside his head. The hydra had been defeated by having its neck stumps burned with each decapitation to prevents head regeneration. Well he had no fire powers and neither did any other children of Poseidon or children of Zeus. He saw as a child of Zeus fired out a thunderbolt. It dazed the Hydra and it shook several heads and appeared not to have damaged it much but it gave him an idea…

"Perry! Jay! When you cut the heads off use a thunderbolt to burn the stump to prevent the heads from regenerating!"

From behind their shields he saw the cabin leaders nodding their heads and signaling to each other. Perry signaled to one of the campers who charged while the Hydra was still stunned and sliced its head off. He rolled out of the way was another thunderbolt stunned him again, giving time for three more campers to charge forth. the Hydra's heads started dropping off one by one. Satisfied, Marlon turned back knowing his siblings were more than able to handle the grunt work.

**Author's Note: I apologize for the slow pace as this is meant to be a book-length story. Please leave some reviews. Thank you.  
**


	2. Chapter II

**Chapter II**

Ramos led Serena and Flint across the magical border. Flint immediately sat down onto the grass and sighed in relief. The past week had been one insane run from monsters across the continent. Just the other day, he'd been a normal teenager living in San Carlos, California. HIs mother worked for Tesla Motors and her job was to come up with new ideas for the company and implicate them. Although strictly her ideas were owned by the company, she sometimes gave her son an idea of what she came up with. Ever since he was a child, he was in awe of her descriptions of revolutionary cars and wanted to be just like her. He worked hard at school but his ADHD made it difficult and the only things he was good at were math and science. He had few friends at school, even in the Robotics Club, where people disliked him because he was incredibly great at building and unintentionally came off as being an arrogant genius. His only real friend had been the school gardener, Ramos, who could be seen with his huge-ass sheers keeping the hedges that grew around the school in check. Ramos the gardener turned out to be a lot more than just a gardener. When the men in black came, the ones with only one eye, Ramos whipped out some reed pipes and started blowing into them. The old oak tree at the front of the school came alive, crushed two cyclopes, and then, using its huge roots as feet, kicked the remaining ones into dust. Ramos then grabbed Flint, shoved him into the back of his truck and stripped off his pants (probably not the best thing for people to see an adult doing), revealing his goat legs. There, Flint met Serena, who knew as much about what was going on as he did. Ramos then took them on a roadtrip across America, saying something about how the Greek gods were actually real and had moved west over the years and how they were actually children of the gods and now they were going to a camp to be trained. The rest of the trip had gone fairly peacefully until the run-in with the hydra-

"Flint?" Serena snapped her fingers in front of his face, bringing him back to the present. "Are you listening?"

"Yeah…" replied Flint, "what are we talking about?"

Ramos rolled his eyes. "I was saying that it's time for me to go and report to the Council of Cloven Elders. Fortunately, it looks like Clemont has arrived. He'll take care of you."

With that Ramos left and Flint and Serena turned to the blonde guy, who must've been Clemont.

"Hey guys, welcome to camp. I'm sure you have lots of questions right now, which will all be answered later. Follow me."

As Clemont led the two down the hill, Flint looked around. To the left were strawberry fields, in the midst of which were satyrs playing reed pipes and several campers. To the right lay a huge forest, with a huge stone that looked like a fist coming out of the ground in the middle. At the center was an elliptical ring of houses, each with its unique architecture and color. Down at the bottom of the hill lay a huge blue house that reminded Flint of the houses he read about in history, the kind white southern plantations lived in before the Civil War. Further away stood an arena, a chariot track where two chariots were racing and being cheered on, and a climbing wall with lava pouring out from the top. The most impressive thing however lay at the bay. Next to several huge buildings that each looked like a combination of the Parthenon and a factory, were 20 or 30 warships, all lined up at the coast of the sea. From the sheen Flint could tell they were metal, probably bronze judging by the cover, but they were all Greek triremes, which seemed strange to Flint considering those hadn't been in use for thousands of years.

The three reached the bottom of the hill. Clemont led them inside. The interior didn't seem as a grand as it had been from the outside but it appeared cozier. There was a huge table where a short pudgy red-faced man wearing leopard print clothing was engaged in a card game with a boy about Flint's age.

Clemont approached them. "Where's Chiron?"

"Teaching archery," said the red-faced man without even looking up from his cards. He took a sip of Diet Coke. "Why he even bothers trying when it's hopeless I'll never know but he seems to think it's his duty to for some reason." He took another sip. "Ridiculous," he said, shaking his head.

"Well I have spearing lessons and I need someone to give a tour of the camp to these arrivals—"

"Spearing lessons?!" cried the red-faced man. "You use a spear?! I didn't even you could fight Clarence!"

Flint could tell Clemont was doing his best to keep his temper in check. "First of all, you know I do Mr. D. Second, my name is Clemont. And third, I still need somebody to—"

"Oh I'm sure they'll be fine. It's not like a tour around the camp would help. You're all hopeless failures!" He paused for a moment. "Except for my children…and you of course Grimsley. You're the only one here aside from the stallion that knows how to play Pinochle."

"Thank you sir," replied Grimsley, "and if I may be so bold, I do believe I am available for taking those two on a tour of a camp."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because this game is over." Grimsley laid down some cards on the table. Flint didn't get what happened but Dionysus turned even redder than he thought possible at the sight but then calmed down.

"Well then…you'd best be going then. Same time next week?"

"Same time," agreed Grimsley, and after giving a curt nod to Clemont, who reciprocated, beckoned Flint and Serena to follow them out of the huge manor, which they obligingly did.


	3. Chapter III

**Chapter III**

"I'm afraid you'll have to tolerate Dionysus," said Grimsley, as if he had been reading his thoughts. "You see, nearly fifty years ago, he was caught chasing an out-of-bounds wood nymph and his father Zeus banished him to serve as camp counselor for half a century. Now that his shift is almost up, he's become more difficult to deal with than ever…except with me of course."

"Yeah," said Flint, "what are you his nephew or something? I know you're not his son because he said—"

"I'm a son of Hades."

This was followed by an awkward silence, which was broken by Flint. "You don't really seem like a son of Hades…I mean sure I guess you have dark hair and aside from that bright orange shirt you wear dark clothing but you seem to friendly to be a son of Hades."

Grimsley smiled at this for this is exactly the type of response he'd hope to get. When he first arrived at camp, many years ago, for as a son of the Big Three his demigod essence was stronger, he'd felt concerned when he discovered he was a son of Hades. Although he looked like a typical son of Hades, having pale skin and dark hair that parted like wings at the sides and drooped over his face in the middle, he was anything but. He had seen the others, with their dyed hair, black clothing, Stygian Iron scythes, knives, katanas (basically anything but a normal sword because that was too "common"), and most of all, their teenage angst, that annoying moodiness that seems to be in all children of Hades except him, and had hated them. He remembered when he first moved from Hermes House to Hades House, he felt disgusted at his half-siblings, who all did nothing but listen to love songs, boast about their dark powers and, most of all, sit on the beach hoping other people would talk to them. It was extremely pathetic. He remembered watching one of his half-sisters wear a pure black skimpy bikini sitting at the lakeside near a group of sons of Aphrodite. He remembered her sighing really loudly with exaggerated sadness, and burying her face in her hands to appear sad, hoping that one of the hot guys would notice her. She tried for about two hours until the afternoon sun and her pale skin, a trait common to all children of Hades, resulted in her getting a sunburned. Grimsley smiled at the memory. Honestly his siblings were all idiots. That was why he preferred to spend time with children of Hermes and Athena. He didn't usually hang out with children of Zeus and Poseidon as they judged him based on his parentage and he found some to be as insipid as the children of Aphrodite and even his own half-siblings (Clemont and Marlon were the exception of course). At times he felt the need to go out of his way to distance himself from his sulkly brothers and sisters, often by giving newcomers to set the right impression on them: despite being a son of Hades, he was nothing like one.

As a result, he now found himself guiding Flint and Serena to the encirclement of houses.

"These," he said, gesturing around them, "are the houses. There were originally only 12, one for each Olympian, but about thirty years ago, after defeating the Titans, the famous Perceus Jackson made the Gods promise to recognize children of minor gods. After that, a son of Hephaestus named Leo Valdez came and found some lost blueprints. Ever since then, the demigod survival rate has increased so we remodeled the cabins to become houses. You're sorted into them judging by your godly parent, which you will find out tonight. Until then, you stay in the guest room of the Hermes House"

"What's that?" asked Flint.

Grimsley and Serena turned to where Flint was pointing at Grimsley let out a groan. Flint had noticed what became known as the Red Crystal of Artemis. Before he could do anything, Flint ran up to it. It was a huge red star-shaped crystal that hung over the door of Artemis House. The reflected red light on silver gave it a look of beauty but on closer examination, there appeared to be a strange-looking red mass at the center of the crystal that gave it an eerie look.

"That…is the Red Crystal of Artemis," explained Grimsley.

"Where'd it come from?" asked Serena.

"Well a couple years back, there was this daughter of Hades named Tanya. Her favorite hobby was writing stories. Her stories were…decent at best. They were mainly about love and such things. One day, Tanya made the mistake of writing a special love story. It was about how Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, had fallen in love with a son of Apollo. When Artemis found out she was furious, naturally, and she made a special visit to camp to release her wrath unto Tanya."

"What does that have anything to do with this crystal?" asked Flint.

"The crystal is what's left of Tanya. When Artemis flew in on her moon-sleigh, she pointed a finger at Tanya and caused her to explode. She then forced the remains together into that red mass you see inside, and encased it with the crystal you before you. She hung it up on her house and shouted "Let this be a warning to all overly avid writers" before flying back into the sky.

Neither Serena nor Flint said a word

Grimsley awkwardly cleared his throat and turned and pointed to the forest and strawberry fields. "Officially, this camp is supposed to be a strawberry plantation. We actually do have some strawberries, which we sell in order to avoid suspicion. As you can see, we have satyrs and children of Demeter working on maintaining them. Over there," he shifted his arm a little so he now pointed at the forest, "is the forest. We play Capture-the-Flag there every Friday."

Serena tilted her head, "Capture-the-Flag?"

Grimsley nodded. "Trust me, it's not what you're thinking of. You'll find out what I mean later." He turned to the around. "That's the fleet of Argo II class ships Leo rediscovered," he said, pointing to the fleet he was mentioning, "that's the climbing wall, the lava spewing out provides an extra challenge. There's the arena where you can challenge other campers or practice on dummies, and next to it is the chariot track, where chariot races are held…obviously." He stopped awkwardly. "And last but not least, that's the Big Manor," Grimsley continued. "It used to be called the Big House but when they remodeled everything they had to call change it to the Big Manor to suit its status. It's where Chiron teaches most of his classes, except for Archery. It's also the location of the camp store, where we should be going now to get you guys some toiletries."

Without further ado, Grimsley led Serena and Flint back to the Big Manor.


	4. Chapter IV

**Chapter IV**

Having just gotten her supplies with Flint and Grimsley from the camp store, Serena collapsed on her bunk in the Hermes House Guest Room. Back at home, she'd been a pretty good student, although it wasn't enough to meet her father's high "asian parent standards." Many people seemed surprised that Serena, as an asian, had a such a western-sounding name as Castle and she had to explain to many people that when her family moved from China to America, they changed their last name from Bao to its English meaning, "Castle," in an attempt to westernize themselves. Serena often excelled in science in math, immediately grasping concepts most children took the rest of the class trying to figure out. However her study habits weren't as great and she occasionally got below 90% on her report card, usually on English. A few days ago, her English teacher asked to see Serena after class and Serena braced herself for a lecture on study habits and "not applying yourself." That sort of happened, but then her English teacher revealed herself to be a vampire, and just before Serena got eaten, Ramos came along and saved her...then he told her that the Greek gods, the ones she learned about in sixth grade history, were real forces that governed the world and that her mother was one of them. He then told her that she had to take her to a camp for kids like her and along the way the picked up Flint and took a roadtrip across America, during which Serena had little or no sleep.

Now that she was safe and sound, she felt the days gone without sleep catching up to her. The small bunk bed in the Guest Room probably wasn't the most comfortable bed she slept in but she had heard from the others that over thirty years ago, there were a lot more kids and instead of having a Guest Room, which was separate from the Male Wing and the Female Wing, all the kids were mixed into one big room and they all slept on the floor and before Perseus had made the gods promise to claim all their gods and have cabins for children of non-Olympian gods, the cabin had been more overcrowded. For a moment, Serena envisioned a massive tangle of bodies on the ground that resembled a group orgy and shuddered at the thought. Then the comfort of the bed and overstress from the past few days overtook her and she fell asleep…

"Serena! Wake up!" Serena opened her eyes groggily and the first thing she saw was Flint looking down at her.

"Huh? What time is it?" groaned Serena. "I don't know it's like around 6 or something and everyone's going to dinner!" shouted Flint.

Dinner? At the sound of the word, Serena remembered that in addition to not sleeping throughout their journey, she had also eaten very little. Ramos insisted that their priority was to get to camp as quickly as possible...even if Serena had starved to death by the time they got there. If this camp's food was anything like the one from the science camp she went to, she could totally go for some. And so, very reluctantly, Serena got up and followed Flint and the rest of the others to the dining pavillion. Like the rest of the camp, it had been remodelled and was even larger than it had been when Percy had lived there. Each camp now had two tables instead of one and like typical teenagers, they split themselves more or less gender-wise, with the occasional hot flirty dumb guy sitting at the girls' table and vice versa. Serena observed that the Hades table seemed to be the quietest, the girls playing with their hair, trying to look pretty, and shooting glances at the guys' table to see if anybody noticed and the guys playing with their weapons, trying to show off, and shooting glances at the girls' table to see if anybody noticed. The rowdiest of the tables were the two Zeus tables, with the guys' table sounding what Serena imagined the inside of a football locker sounded like and the girls' table sounding what Serena knew the cheerleaders at her school sounded like. She sat down at one of the Hermes' tables next to Flint. Food hadn't been served yet so the campers were filling themselves up on drink. Serena noted with interest that many campers, most of them at the Poseidon tables, had blue drinks.

"What's with all the blue drinks?" asked Serena to the boy sitting next to him.

"Oh right you guys are new!" answered the boy. "Hey my name is Conrad." Flint and Serena both introduced themselves to him. "As for the blue drinks?" he sighed, "that's just a fad that won't go away. You see, there was this famous demigod named Perseus Jackson, you've probably heard of him, who defeated the Titans about thirty years ago and he used to love blue drinks. Some admirers took up this tradition themselves and now half the camp is into it." He rolled his eyes. "It's not even like it's special! Anyone with a magic cup, which is everybody at camp, could get it if they wanted to! Yet they keep doing it like it'll make them great like Percy!" He sighed. "Sorry about that. Anyways here comes the food!"

Flint and Serena turned to where Conrad was looking at and saw several satyrs come out carrying trays of food and setting it on the tables. When the satyrs arrived at their table with the trays, Serena gasped. It was a smorgasbord of barbequed meats, biscuits, pizza, and a ton of other tasty foods. Judging by the smell, she guessed that all of this stuff was organic. This camps served good-tasting food that was healthy for you! Her stomach rumbled and she snapped out of her reverie. She was about to dig in when Conrad tapper her shoulder.

"Not so fast! First, we have to make an offering to the gods, usually our godly parent...I'm not sure what you guys do though." Seeing the other kids at their table get up, Flint and Serena followed suit. As she waited in line, Serena watched as all the other campers walked up to huge braziers just outside of the dining pavilion. As each walked up, they tossed food into them while muttering a prayer before returning to their tables. When it was her turn, Serena tossed in the best of her food and thought a prayer in her head. "To my mother...whoever you are." She then returned to her table and picked up where she left off, about to dig in…

Flint wiped his mouth on his sleeve, causing Serena to wrinkle her nose. The food had been as delicious as it looked and Flint still couldn't believe it when Conrad told him for the sixth time that yes, this is what they ate everyday. At this moment, the camper got up from their tables and headed gathered around a huge campfire. Several people got up to tell stories and skits and Flint noticed that each time the campers laughed as a group, the fire glowed brighter and redder. "It's like the flames are mimicking the campers," he thought. After about an hour of stories skits, and towards the end, some singing, Chiron asked the new arrivals to walk forth. Serena and Flint awkwardly walked into the campfire. Flint began to sweat, not just from the heat of the campfire, but also because he felt the eyes of all the other campers on him. Serena didn't look to crazy about this herself.

"And now let us greet our new campers!" proclaimed Chiron.

There was an awkward silence during which Flint stood uncomfortably, still sweating. He turned to Serena, "So are we supposed to make a speech or-"

He was interrupted by a gasp. Serena began to stare at him. Flint sweated even more. "What happened? Was it something I said or-"

"All hail Flint, son of Hephaestus," interrupted Chiron. The other campers got up and bowed.

Flint looked up and had to avert his eyes for the light from the floating, blazing hammer blinded him. He reached up to touch it but his hands just passed through it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of light. He turned and saw a hologram above Serena's head, only this one was a silver owl. Serena was looking up at it like it might start attacking her.

"All hail Serena, daughter of Athena." The other campers turned towards her and bowed now.

So he was a son of Hephaestus? This should be interesting...


	5. Chapter V

**Chapter V**

Serena slung the pack containing her supplies, which were few in number since she hadn't brought a luggage with her to school the day she was attacked and only held the toiletries Grimsley had gotten for her. She bid farewell to Flint, who complained that she was acting like they were leaving each other forever, and gave him a hug, at which Flint stopped complaining. She then slung her small pack over her shoulder and headed towards the Athena House. It was decorated gray, gold, and blue, with a silver owl engraved above a bronze door, on which was a silver "6." Serena slowly pushed opened the door. In the parlor of the house, all the Athena kids surrounding something, screaming in delight. Serena squeezed her way to the front. She could now see what the others were acting all rowdy about. At the center of attention were two campers, one a girl with dirty blonde hair, and the other with dark brown hair, surrounding a huge holographic table. At the boy's side, there was a holograph of a blue frog with a tongue wrapped around its neck like a scarf; at the girl's side stood a red beastly thing with a wide grin on its face and a flaming V on its head. Above the blue frog was the word "Greninja" and a short yellow bar that read "30%" while the one above the red beast red "Darmanitan" and a longer green bar that read "100%." There were four floating rectangles that formed a square like the huge screens at Madison Square Garden. As Serena watched, a stream of water shot out from "Greninja" and hit "Darmanitan," whose bar fell down to 10% and turned red. "Darmanitan" then shrivelled up into a small gray rock looking thing and became "Darmanitan-Zen." The word "Protean: Water/Dark - Water" while the rectangles read "Greninja used Waterfall!" and then scrolled up to pave way for "It's super-effective!" The girl sucked in her breath. The boy smiled and quickly and decisively tapped a button on his screen. The girl looked at her screen and after thinking for about a minute, tapped a button. The small gray beast shrunk and in its place, a flying green sprite, a "Celebi," appeared. The girl smiled a little. Her smile soon faded when Greninja made an attacking motion. The green bar above Celebi rapidly shrunk to nothing as its health dwindled to 0%. On the rectangles flashed "Greninja used U-Turn/It's super-effective!/Celebi fainted." At "Celebi fainted, the Celebi shrunk into nothing. Everybody gasped and the campers on the dark-haired boy's side cheered loudly.

The dirty-blonde girl gave a cry of rage "What?! But how did you...how did you…?"

"Simple logic," said the dark-haired boy. "Nobody in their right mind would've get a Darmanitan-Zen in battle against Greninja and I anticipated that you'd switch out to something else, perhaps something resistant to water since you'd probably expect me to use Waterfall again."

"But...what if I hadn't switched out-"

"Being part Psychic and down to 10% HP, U-Turn would've caused Darmanitan to faint anyways."

The girl groaned. "Great...I can see why you're the House Leader. And with Darmanitan as my only remaining Pokemon and you having that Hydreigon, there's no way I can win." She sighed again. "Alright, I concede. You win."

A round of cheers arose and the crowd disbanded. Serena turned to leave too but then she saw dark-haired boy rose from his seat and approach her. She saw that he wore a dark gray jacket over his orange camp shirt along with pants of the same color.

"Don't think I didn't notice you watching that game. Hello Serena, my name is Steven Stone and I'm the Leader of the Athena House."

"You play Pokemon?"

"Yes you see, being children of the wisdom goddess, we prefer to have our House Leaders be clever strategists rather than able weapons-handlers. Thus, instead of holding fights at the arena, we instead challenge each other to matches that involve strategy."

"Which involves playing Pokemon…"

"There are various strategic games available for challengers to choose from but yes, Pokemon is one of them."

"Wouldn't the better Pokemon player just win then?"

"Not necessarily. Most battles are randomized, like the Random Overused Battle you witnessed earlier and rather than having people use strategies they're familiar with, we force them to deal with brand new scenarios...oh my look at the time! Well erm welcome to Athena House then! Um...we have a library over there you can check out anytime or use any of the other Holo-tables for battle simulations or architecture if you'd like. You'll be sleeping over in the girls' dorm which is over there, now goodnight!" With that, he exited to a hallway to the right of the entrance and Serena headed to the opposite hallway. She selected a random door and entered. After exchanging greetings with several of her roommates, she went to the bathroom at the end of the hall, showered, brushed her teeth, returned to her room, changed, and fell asleep, feeling better about life at camp.


	6. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI**

After the campfire, Flint went to his bunk in the Hermes Guest House, which was right on top of Serena's, to pack the few things he had. Serena, who looked somewhat downcast, said goodbye to him. Flint just smiled and said, "Oh come on it's not like we're never gonna-" and then she hugged him, which shocked him since no girl had ever done that and he barely knew her. He silently left Hermes House and walked across the center of the ring of houses to Hephaestus House, which looked like a mini-forget. Over the door was an iron engraving of a hammer that glowed red and on the door, which was black like the rest of the house, was the number "9." He pushed open the heavy door and walked in. Inside was a huge workshop, with tools, scrap metal and various pieces of unfinished machinery lying around. At the middle, a crowd had gathered around a clearing, which had to be the only place in the room with no junk lying around. Carefully stepping around the debris, Flint made his way to the commotion. There were two people strapped into chairs with wires running around their helmets, arm bands, and leg bands. In the clearing at their feet, were two robots, each about .5 meter in height, one red, and one blue. They were both engaged in a fierce fist fight, each throwing punches faster than any human could so that they were mere red and blue blurs. Neither robot showed no signs of giving up but at one punch, the armor of the blue robot fell loose. The red robot appeared to notice this newly formed "chink in the armor," and began pummeling it there, eventually, the breastplate of the blue robot came completely loose and before it could defend itself, the red robot punched it in the hard-drive, shattering it. The moment this happened, one of the two's eyes flew wide open and he let out a loud scream as he clutched his chest. He looked down, and saw that his body was fine. The other person's eyes also opened. He took off his helmet and removed the wrapping around his legs and arms, leapt up, and starting dancing around.

"Yeah that's right! Suck it you little bitch! Your shitty little blue robot didn't stand a damn chance against my awesome Crimson Typhon!" He cleared his throat, "Uh I mean...good game. That was a pretty close one actually. Your Cerulean Talos just needs to have its armor grafted on more tightly...and a new engine...yeah sorry about that." He turned to the rest of the campers. "Alright! Show's over! Everyone get some sleep!"

The campers all left, some staying to help the loser pick up the remains of his blue robot. The winner, who had dark skin and curly black hair, approached Flint.

"Hey what's up bro?! Welcome to Hephaestus House! I'm Blaine, son of Hephaestus! You must be Flint right? Well come on! I'll show you around!"

He put an arm around Flint, leading him to to boys' dormitory area. "Being children of Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths, the forge, metals, all that good stuff, we tend to be really good at machines and stuff. You see those huge-ass ships at the harbor? Those were our handiwork. Pretty sweet huh?"

"Yeah those were pretty awesome!" Flint grinned. "Who came up with the idea for those badass ships?"

Blaine's smile wavered a bit. "No idea actually. About thirty years ago, a new camper named Leo Valdez came along and discovered a blueprint for those ships. It had been written by another son of Hephaestus during the Civil War-"

Flint's smile faded. "Wait as in the American Civil War during the 1860s?" Blaine nodded. "What the hell?! We have a whole fleet of ships based on a design created about 180 years ago?!" Blaine cleared his throat nervously. "Well when you put it that way it sounds-"

"Bad?! Of course it is! We're approaching the halfway mark about the 21st century people! It's time we upgraded! Civil War style ships just won't do! I'm gonna come up with a way better and more modern design!"

Blaine smiled. "Ok suit yourself. Just saying, it's a lot easier to follow the blueprints-"

"Screw that! As children of the gods of craftsmen, we should be able to think outside-the-box! Not just follow what others have designed!"

With that, Flint stormed out of the hallway into one of the rooms. There were several Murphy beds on the walls, connected to huge gears. Without bothering to change or anything, he angrily selected an empty bad, programmed a passcode into it, opened it up, and plopped down.. "I'll show them," he thought, "I'll come up with something way better than some kid that lived in the 1860s did." And with that thought in mind, he fell asleep.


	7. Chapter VII

**Chapter VII**

Serena opened her eyes and yawned. She felt groggy from having just woken up though not extremely so since she'd woken up on her own accord rather than having had someone wake her up. Her roommates were already up and getting dressed. She quickly got up, brushed her teeth, and changed into her orange camper's shirt and a black high-waisted skirt. She rapidly combed her hair a bit then ran after the other Athena children to the dining pavillion. Breakfast was delicious as always and she'd made a couple of friends. They'd been talking about the recent earthquake that hit Japan, and how if the Poseidon children weren't lying about their father not being behind it, then what caused it? She headed towards the Big Manor for her first Mythology Class with Chiron. She entered the classroom and found several demigods already there. She spotted Flint and walked to him and they exchanged greetings. She then glanced around. All of the kids there were more or less her age. She spotted a group of daughters of Apollo reading Divergent, Maze Runner, and Mortal Instruments while fangirling over the male characters in the series. Several sons of Hermes were playing Texas Hold'em albeit with rampant cheating. Then from the doorway, a handsome scholarly-looking that wheeled in on his wheelchair, looking very much like a crippled Indian Jones. Despite his unimposing appearance, the class immediately stopped whatever they were involved and lightly bowed. Serena looked at Flint, who looked just as confused as he was about who this guy was but followed suit. While the other children took their places, he man in the wheelchair wheeled himself up to Serena and Flint.

"I remember you two from yesterday! Sorry I couldn't tour you around camp, I had a class to teach. I hope Grimsley was adequate?" They nodded. "Good! Well my name is Chiron, head counselor here at Camp Half-Blood. I also teach Archery and all the Mythology classes here. Today we're going to learn about the beginning of the universe. Hmm let's see...you two can take those two seats over there!" He pointed to the front and center seats, the ones right in front of the teacher's desk, the ones not even the smartest kids wanted. Serena groaned internally. Apparently classes were the same no matter where they were. She and Flint took their seats and class began.

Chiron then got up from his wheelchair. Only he didn't do it normally. His legs didn't move at all but his body rose out like he was growing at the waist. He kept on going until it was revealed that below his shirt, was the front part of a white stallion. Then the front two legs emerged followed by the rest of the horse body and the back two legs. Chiron then nudged the wheelchair back from him with his back feet and turned to face the class.

"Today we shall be discussing the origins of the universe. Can anybody tell me who is the eldest primordial god?"

Behind the, came an answer. "Chaos?"

Good. Yes Chaos was the first god, who created everything. But does anyone knows what he created it from?"

There was silence. Then… "From willpower?"

"Close actually, he created it from his own essence. Chaos's essence was so big that he created the universe and the gods from his own essence…"

The lesson went on. Serena listened enraptured to Chiron's lecture. As it turned out, Gaia, the primordial goddess of the Earth, only inhabited the crust of the Earth, a mere fraction of the world. Below that reigned Chaos, whose presence formed the solid core of the Earth and around that, forming the outer core and the Mantle, was a less concentrated essence that formed a vast and deep ocean of black sludge called Nothing, which while imbued with powerful magic, was extremely corrosive and hard to work with. Eons ago, Chaos had spread the Nothing across the universe, creating planets and stars and then created Gaia around him so that he now slept at the center of the universe. Occasionally, he stirred in his sleep, causing Nothing to erupt onto the Earth. Sometimes, bits of it would seep into Mount Olympus, which was connected to the rest of Earth, and solidify into Celestial Bronze, which the cyclopes would mine and forge into weapons. Nothing was the substance from which all enchanted metals were made. Few could work with them, they included Telekhines, who had made Poseidon's trident from it, the Cyclopes, who as mentioned earlier mined it and also made Zeus' Thunderbolt from it, Hephaestus, who as the God of Craftsmen could naturally shape Nothing as he wished, and Hades, who fused copious amount of Nothing with Iron to create Stygian Iron.

"There is however, one form of Nothing that mortals can work with, and even then it should be handled with extreme caution."

Chiron produced from a drawer in his desk, a tiny flask about half the volume of a Dixie cup which contained an oily liquid, the green glinting under the light from the ceiling. Serena, who thought the green oil didn't look particularly dangerous, had no idea what it was and neither did Flint, with whom she exchanged confused looks with. There was the sound of movement. Serena and Flint turned around and saw that the class had all gasped loudly in unison and had all pushed themselves away from the Chiron and the green flask. One student had fallen over in his desk and now struggled to regain his position, composure, and pride. Serena and Flint turned back to the green flask nervously.

"Yes! Greek Fire!" Chiron took out a glass of water and filled it by about a third. "Extremely flammable…" He poured the contents out of the tiny flask into the cup. Upon touching the water, a flame appeared. "...and the more water that gets on it, the stronger it gets." He poured more water into the cup, causing the flame to drastically increase in size and ferocity.

"Yes Greek Fire is a most dangerous substance and is in fact derived from Nothing. By mixing tiny amounts of it with water, one can create Greek Fire."

He beckoned to the satyr TA sitting in the back of the room who rushed forth and took the still burning cup out of the classroom.

"To reiterate, Chaos resides primarily at the core of the Earth surrounded by massive amounts of Nothing, which, if the artisan is skilled enough, can be used to create anything, for Nothing is the substance from which all things in the universe came from. Class dismissed!"

The students all rushed out of the classroom. Flint caught up to Serena. "Well that was an interesting lecture."

"Yes," said Serena, absent-minded. Her mind was racing. There was something Chiron had said that set her mind rolling. If Nothing contained Chaos' essence, and Nothing existed on Earth, and she knew Gods could regenerate, summoning their essence from elsewhere, did this mean that…

...and she lost her train of thought. She ran after Flint to the outside of the Big Manor...


	8. Chapter VIII

**Chapter VIII**

Over the next few weeks, Serena and Flint rapidly adjusted to camp life. However, they never truly got along with their cabin members and developed close friendships with Clemont, Marlon, and Grimsley, all of whom had the same half-sibling issue: their half-siblings were so different from them.

Just has he promised himself he would do, Flint had began to create a design for a new type of ship. With the help of Serena, whose knowledge of engineering had improved dramatically thanks to the programs in the holo-table Steven recommended to her. Despite Blaine's response to the idea of creating a new type of ship, Flint found that whenever he showed his blueprints to anyone who asked what he was working on, they all gave him encouraging comments and occasionally some advice.

At the risk of sounding narcissistic, Flint had to admit he believed his ship was going to be truly impressive. From the plans, it was the same length as the Argo II-class ships, as Flint later found out was their official name, but significantly wider. It looked very much like a cross between the Prometheus ship and the helicopters in Avatar. It was to have three floors and four engines, along with two helicopter blades protruding out from and above the ship. At the top would be two large cannons fixed on a rotating turret and elsewhere on the ship were several guns rigged to fire Celestial Bronze bullets. The cockpit was of a unique design. What would have been a long windscreen was divided in the middle by a hull, on which a screen was embedded. The screen would be programmed to show the outside as if it were an actual windscreen, along with several convenient applications such as a targeting system. The result of this was that while from the inside there appeared to be one huge windscreen, with the center being able to be turned on and off, from the outside, it looked as if there were two separate windscreens on the side, giving the impression that the ship had two glaring eyes.

Flint paled at the amount of Celestial Bronze he would need to obtain to build the ship. Celestial Bronze didn't come cheap. The camp only gave him so much for a project. Fortunately, being a son of Hephaestus, metalworking came to him naturally and Flint found himself building small devices that he would sacrifice in the name of his father Hephaestus and ask that he give him the necessary supplies. His father came through in aces, having given his son his own magical tool belt along with several kilograms of celestial bronze upon sacrificing his first creation, a mousetrap on wheels programed to run around in circles until someone stepped on it. Now that he had his own tool belt, he started to build more advanced things, getting more supplies with each sacrifice. Flint also started to go on quests for Celestial Bronze. Despite the fact that the tool-belts were supposedly limited and could not give weapons, Flint, who was surprised that he was the only person who thought about doing this, realized that he could bypass this limitation by asking the belt for a combination of a welding torch and nail gun, giving him a handgun and flamethrower in one. Slowly but surely, Flint began to gain the supplies he needed to build his huge ship…

Serena had taken the time to help out her good friend Flint in building his ship. However, she had her own things to think about as well. Utilizing the library at the Athena House, Serena began to study on Nothing and its uses throughout the history of demigods. She discovered that nobody had really actually made Greek Fire from Nothing before, it was all given to them pre-made as Greek Fire. Therefore, nobody knew what was the difference between adding Nothing to water and making an explosion and adding Nothing to water and having it dissolve to form Greek Fire. To find out, she needed pure Nothing and decided to ask Grimsley for help.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Grimsley laughed uncontrollably while Serena stood there unamused.

"Let me get this straight," Grimsley said for the third time, "You want me to use my 'Darkness Power'," here he snickered a bit, "to isolate the Nothing from Greek Fire?"

"Yes," answered Serena for the third time, "and if you laugh again, I'm gonna hit you."

"Okay okay I'm sorry," said Grimsley, "but what you're asking me to do is impossible."

"Aw come on please?"

"Serena, let me tell you something." Grimsley sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and patted the ground next to him to indicate that he wanted her to sit down. She continued to stare at him so he sighed and stood up. "Serena, just because I'm the son of Hades, doesn't mean I have dominion over anything that's black or dark whatever. That's as stupid as saying a son of Poseidon could control the water from the Five Rivers of the Underworld simply because they have water.'"

And so Serena decided that she would need to find other methods to extract Nothing. She decided to try the next most obvious way, evaporating it. Taking a flask of Greek Fire down the the Forge, she opened it extremely carefully and slowly heated it slowly so the water boiled out.

The resulting fire took ten Lake Naiads and twenty children of Poseidon about half an hour to put out.

The second time, she kept the flask closed and had it put inside a huge blast-absorbing safe with a special camera to view the inside. To her surprise, the flask didn't explode. Instead, it left a cloud of steam in the flask surrounding a tiny blob of black sludge sitting at the bottom of the flask, Serena had finally gotten her pure Nothing. Now she just needed to contain it. From the two different results, she answered her three greatest questions at once. 1) How does one get pure Nothing? by isolating Nothing from Water by boiling Greek Fire in an oxygen deprived container. 2) What's the difference between adding Nothing into water and creating Greek Fire and adding Nothing into water and having it blow up? The water had to have no oxygen in it otherwise the Nothing would react with it and blow up. 3) How does one create Greek Fire from Nothing? By dissolving it into pure deoxygenated water. Armed with this new information, Serena asked Caitlin if he could perhaps add a little something else into his ship. Knowing that Caitlin had been extremely helpful, he agreed and she added her design for a Nothing Containment Device, which worked by creating a vacuum that prevented the Nothing from exploding, in the ship, which would look like a huge gumball machine only instead of holding gumballs, would hold the essence of Chaos, the substance from which the entire universe was created from.

And so for the next several months, with Flint continuing to build up the supplies he needed for his ship and Serena continuing to build up on her supply of Nothing, the two of them worked together to create what would become the greatest warship Camp Half-Blood had ever seen.


End file.
